I will answer this question in my review, but before that, let me give you some details about my SEMrush experience.

When ShoutMeLoud got hit by Google Panda, I had to completely change the way I was blogging. I realized that instead of just writing content that readers loved, I had to make sure my content was also loved by search engines!

This is when I started learning more and more about SEO and link building (which is still an ongoing process). I managed to recover ShoutMeLoud from Panda, and in the process, I learned the importance of focusing on content quality to improve my blog’s SEO.

I needed to ask myself what I had done that might have caused Google Panda to hit my site so hard.

I quickly learned that having quality content was not enough! I also needed to build quality links, do timely audits of my site’s SEO, and pay attention to a few other important factors.

I tried using many tools in the process (including Moz, Ahrefs, SEMrush, and a few more). While all of them worked well, I liked SEMrush the best because of its great features and how it allowed me to get all of my SEO work done in one place.

In just one dashboard, I can get everything done. I will show you what I mean in a moment.

Before I move ahead with my SEMrush review, it is important to let you know that my knowledge of SEO is self-taught through the use of trial and error and from paying attention to the latest SEO industry updates.

What is SEMrush? – A Hands-On Review

Let’s explore what makes SEMrush such an amazing SEO tool and a favorite among millions of users.

SEMrush makes it really easy to find what keyword your site (or any other site) is ranking for. In short, it makes keyword research a piece of cake.

Once you are done doing your keyword research, you can add in keywords and track their positions in all major search enginesbased on geographical location.

I emphasize the geographical location feature as it’s important for those who target specific countries like Spain, the U.K, Australia, India, the U.S., etc. For a global blogger, you can also use this feature to see how your site ranks in specific countries’ search engines.

It is an essential SEM (search engine marketing) tool that I believe every serious blogger and internet marketer should have in their SEO tool arsenal.

SEMrush is a product from the maker of SEOQuake, a popular SEO addon for Firefox.

At the time of this writing, SEMrush has:

more than 130,000,000 domains and

more than 800,000,000 keywordsin their database.

SEMrush will allow you to find all of the keywords for which any existing web page on the internet is ranking. You can also find more statistical details regarding specific keywords and related keywords which you can rank for.

Sound a little confusing?

Here is a screenshot which will justify my statement that SEMrush is essential for all bloggers and serious internet marketers:

Let me walk you through the process…

Note: You can use it for any site. Serious internet marketers are encouraged to try it with their competitors’ sites.

All I need to do is add the domain name at the top, and here is the information I receive:

Let me explain a few of the fields on this report page…

Keyword: The keyword for that specific ranked page.

Pos: The keyword’s position in the specified search engine. In this example, I have selected Google’s US database (default), but you can change it to other locations and search engines too. You can also use the Free Keyword Monitor for verification.

Volume: Number of exact match queries for that keyword in the local search. In this example, I have once again used Google’s US database. (This data was taken using the Google Keyword planner tool which I have also verified the accuracy of myself.)

CPC: Average cost per click for the keyword.

URL: Corresponding URL to which that keyword is driving traffic.

Com: This shows the competition of advertisers for that keyword. A lower number means little competition and a higher number means greater competition for that term. (How can a search engine marketing tool be complete without a competition check?)

Results: Number of search engine results. (A lower number here is better.)

Trend: This is one column which I find very interesting. In order to find profitable keywords, we need to make sure the traffic trend for that keyword is not dying.This column pulls up the search trend for that keyword over the last 12 months.

In addition to all of the information resulting from our search, there are two columns that, as a blogger, interest me the most.

It’s here that you will find the top 200 organic keywords for that domain and also receive a detailed backlink report for any domain along with the link’s anchor text.

For me, the most interesting factor here is the ability to find the top keywords driving traffic to any domain. For a serious marketer or company, knowing a top competitor’s keywords is the holy grail.

So back to the original question:

“Should I start using SEMrush?”

My answer:

YES!!!

Why should you start using the SEMrush tool right away?

As bloggers, we work day and night to write posts hoping to increase the amount of traffic coming into our blog. But we often don’t focus enough on how we’re generating that traffic. If you check your analytics, you will realize that only a couple of your blog posts are contributing all of the traffic to your blog.

But when using the SEMrush SEO tool, you can find keywords which are driving traffic to your competitor’s website and you can writequality content based around those keywords.This will help you get a better position for certain target keywords in your niche.

If you want to try it out and see how well it can work for you, they offer a free 14-day trial.

SEMrush works best with the PRO account (as you will get a complete report), but for a beginnerwho is new to search engine marketing (SEM) research, you can always start with the free trial. Once you are accustomed to its various features, you can upgrade to the PRO account to get a complete, detailed analysis of any website (like yours and your competitor’s).

I hope this SEMrush review has helped you to understand the benefit of this awesome search engine marketing tool. Always remember, SEMrush (or any other SEM tool) is useful for research and analysis, but at the end of the day, it’s your hard, smart, and quality work which ultimately puts you at the top.

Have you used SEMrush before? How’s your experience been using it to supercharge your website’s SEO? Let us know in the comments!

Do you know someone who can benefit from this excellent tool? Share this review with them on Facebook, Twitter, or Google Plus!

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SEMrush is one of the best search engine marketing (SEM) tools to find your competitors' keywords. This is like the holy grail for keyword research.

A blog scientist by the mind and a passionate blogger by heart ❤️. Fountainhead of ShoutMeLoud (Award winning blog), speaker at various international forums.
Life motto: Live while you can! Teach & inspire while you could & Smile while you have the teeth.

Impressive one. And one question i have that “can we use keywords of other sites by checking on above ^^ tool..” or they have the copyright on that too.! Please let me know and yes one of the awesome post again.. you are becoming a Researcher in blogging..!!

I have myself few classified ads sites and I wondered why I was hit too (it’s just classifieds, there is by definition little content in it, everebody know that)? I thought “Google wants us all to be blogger now” but as you said, bloggers with good contents was hit too?! So moreorless, only few lucky one get benefit from it (I’ve seen some niche forums that increased there traffic by 500% from Panda day one without changing a thing). I might try SemRush, who knows, it might be the solution I was looking for…

I really have to thank you for this article, Harsh.
Actually, I had come across something related to this topic at the time when the whole thing was Greek and Latin to me. I left it there, of course, not realizing the importance of it. As you have mentioned we get to know certain things from our experience. Since recently, I have been trying to get details regarding this. Your article is timely as far as I am concerned.
Thank you again.
Regards……

I have Just checked this awesome tool and it’s result are just same as my Google analytics results , Thus i am sure the results of another website might be exactly same.

Though we will be able to know the competitive keywords and other factors that help our competitor to excel. My question is- does this tool say to focus on the same keyword/key phrase that help our competitor to gain more targeted traffic.?

@Rakesh
This tool helps you to analyze keywords and many more details related to the Keyword. More over, when you are into a competitive niche and serious online business, understanding your competitor strategy, Keywords and backlinks will help you to create your plan better. As I mentioned, competitor Keyword, it’s always a good idea to target same keyword and outrank them…!!
For example, in India Makemytrip and cleartrip are both used for online ticketing..And if one of them can find out what Keyword is driving maximum traffic to competitor, they can plan out strategy to outrank them…And this won’t only help in getting branding but also more sales and customers. And by the end of the day what really matter is who makes more sales.!

nice tool bro…i had heard of this seo software before but had never really tried it out..as you said it gives us a good statistical data and lets us analyze which keyword to blog for before writing a post so that we get higher rankings.

i am currently using joost de valk’s seo plugin for optimizing seo on my site..do you think my site seo will gain a bump by using semrush in combination with wordpress seo by yoast or do you think is should deactivate yoast and activate semrush only??

Bro, what is the main difference between free semrush or a pro one?
If m not wrong does the free semrush tools number of searches are lesser than the pro or there is some other factor please tell asap….
Regards.

Thanks bro it was a great review on the tool. I was planning to purchase this seo tool, till now i was using its free version. After using the free version I found out it as very cool . Thanks for sharing the review with us.

before reading this post, i had no idea about semrush. finding keywords from competitor post/URl is graet idea, no onwrads before writing any post, i will do some research and find keywords of competitor posts’ranking for

I surprised, when I read the first sentence that ShoutMeLoud got hit by Google Panda. After studying your case I realized that I should take care about what Google love. Mostly, I use Google Key Words Planner.MRUSH is new for me. The SEO tool of SEMRUSH, where we can find the SEO point of view keywords to increase internet traffic and to get a better position for targeted keywords is truly helpful.

All the important fields of the report page are useful some of them are Com and Trends are good. I plan to start with the SEMRUSH free trial account.

I surprised, when I read the first sentence that ShoutMeLoud got hit by Google Panda. After studying your case I realized that I should take care about what Google love. Mostly, I use Google Key Words Planner. SEMRUSH is new for me. The SEO tool of SEMRUSH, where we can find the SEO point of view keywords to increase internet traffic and to get a better position for targeted keywords is truly helpful.

All the important fields of the report page are useful some of them are Com and Trends are good. I plan to start with the SEMRUSH free trial account.

Thanks for sharing the tool. I see the results are pretty close to actual. However, how accurate do you think this tool is? Do they update in real-time or there is some lag for days/months to reflect actual data? If you know and share this information would be great.

Hi Harsh,
Definitely it is an awesome tool for researching keyword. SEMRUSH has so many features which can help us in many ways.
I tried it free trial version and seems great tool.
However, very useful article for every bloggers and webmasters.
Thanks for sharing this Great article with us!

Hey harsh i have purchased the pro version of semrush but i am not able to understand the interface how would it be helpful for me getting confused i saw some videos but finding hard to undertsand can you suggest something

I’m targeting the niche market and I was trying to use semrush as a niche – long tail keyword finder and I find it absolutely useless. Semrush wont pick up niche data – only the big, generic kewords, which is a bad idea for most small businesse/bloggers. To balance out my opinion – Insights in the competition is a really cool feature.

This tool is really helpful to read competitor’s keywords. I have a questions, ” Suppose I found many keywords from my competitor and now I want to write about those keywords too. Which keywords should I select? with more traffic, cpc or what?” Also tell me how to knockout competitor for that keyword?”

Great review!
I’m using SEMrush and it doesn’t prevent me to maximize results with other similar tool. I’m using quite a lot of these. Can recommend SERPstat for its price. And ahrefs is also indispensable.

I just bought Semrush tool basic plan after reading this article,Tool is fine but the only issue i’m facing at this moment is that Semrush have limited amount of countries data.For example I wanted to know some keywords difficulty and CPC organic research for Pakistan but they seems not have enough data for Pakistan region which is why There is no option of Pakistan in the list and many other countries aswell unlike Longtailpro which has big amount of variety.since my blog is for Pakistani readers so I couldnt took much benefit from this tool.However mistake is from my end I should have done research about its complete features.apart from all this very informative Article Harsh Bro and overall Semrush is a good tool for SEO.

Thanks Harsh for your review. SEMRUSH shows the keywords that are ranking for our site, it does not provide the list of keywords that actually sent the traffic to our site. We might rank high for certain keywords, but it does not mean that people are actually using those keywords and then being able to find us. Do you know any tool that gives a full list of keywords that people used to find our site? Google Analytics gives a short list, but shows the most as Not Provided.

I also want to see our site ranking for certain keywords that I myself choose and monitor the rankings to see how I can improve the rankings by SEO implementations. Is there any easy-to-use tool to provide such historical data that can also be exported? I know AuthorityLab, but it seems that fetching data to their report is extremely slow. Is there any alternative tool? I don’t want to manually check site ranking for one keyword at a time, and then put the data to Excel manually.

Hi Harsh, thanks for this great post. You provided very useful information for seo proffessionals.
My target audience for my website is India. Is there any feature in semrush to know for which keywords my site is getting ranked in Indian search engines? And what are the stratagies that I should use to get higher ranking?
Regards

Sir, Thank you so much for sharing nice information about semrush.. It was very interesting, informative and helpful. Being a blogger, i can say, semrush is a really awesome tool to beat our competitors in Blogging field

Dear Harsh,
I have been using free trial version of SEMRush for 7 days and it’s so helpful for a new blogger like me & I have Followed the same instruction explained by you about reviewing SEMRUSH to get free Review Account. And Surprise, I got Free Pro Subscription of same.It’s an awesome tool and must use by every blogger.

Hi, Harsh.
Impressive article. You have shared details about SEMRush. I am using this tool. This SEO tool is the richest tool, it has everything that a blogger really need. Especially, this tool offers you competitors analysis feature, it is really helpful for the newbie bloggers to research their competitors.
SEMrush is really an excellent keywords research tool, finding a profitable keyword is extremely easy if you have SEMrush.
Thanks for sharing.

Sir, Thank you so much for sharing nice information about semrush.. It was very interesting, informative and helpful. Being a blogger, i can say, semrush is a really awesome tool to beat our competitors in Blogging field. Keep up the good work